


Spirits

by becausenobreeches (crucibulis)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Boys Kissing, Camping, Drunken Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:31:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crucibulis/pseuds/becausenobreeches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just Dorian and Maxwell flirting, gossiping and complaining while they share a bottle of brandy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine this scene takes place before the two of them have slept together.

"Do they have names?" Maxwell asked, eyes sparkling with wonder at the small orbs of light that danced right above their heads. Wisps, summoned for entertainment as much as a substitute for candles, which were apparently not deemed enough of an emergency item to be carried up the frozen river into the Emprise.

Dorian watched the Inquisitor with a similar if more guarded fascination, Max's bright smile as intoxicating as the brandy even in the almost-dark of their tent. "Names..." he repeated absently, having hardly registered the question.

"Like the more proper spirits..." Maxwell explained. "Wisdom and Justice and so forth."

"Oh. No..." Dorian answered, pondering how to explain as he rocked the half-empty bottle onto one edge and then the other. "They're more like fragments, as opposed to the embodiment of an emotion. Nothing so defined. They are easily influenced into whatever you wish them to be," he said, and then brought the bottle up to his lips.

"In that case, I'm going to name that one Charlie," Maxwell declared, pointing to a particular wisp that was closest to him.

Dorian only just managed to swallow before the chuckle escaped his throat. "And how exactly do you plan to distinguish 'Charlie' from his brethren?" he snickered.

Max didn't answer, preoccupied with trying to entice the wisp onto his open hand, and then pouting when it flew away from him instead, floating over to Dorian's hair and tickling his scalp. "I think Charlie likes you better than me," the Inquisitor complained.

"Hmm... Odd," Dorian replied, caught between a boastful smile and a thoughtful frown. "Maybe it's because you're not a mage. Or maybe it's the mark." A gasp. "Or _maybe_ it's the lyrium," he realized.

"So being a Templar means I can't be friends with wisps?" Maxwell asked with a small amount of alarm, brows stitching together. _"Well..."_ he huffed exaggeratedly. "That's enough to drive a man to drink, isn't it?" he said, reaching for the bottle of Orlesian brandy.

"Ha!" Dorian handed it to him even as he was shushed for laughing too loud. "Are you trying emotional blackmail on spirits?!" he whispered, or at least tried to talk as quietly as he could while tipsy.

"Might work," Maxwell shrugged. "You _said_ they were easily influenced."

A gust of wind made Dorian shiver, interrupting his train of thought. "It's so blightedly cold," he hissed instead, rubbing and wringing his hands together. "You're the Inquisitor, can't you talk to someone about this?" he griped.

"Says the man who can make fire," Max replied with a smirk that made Dorian feel a little warmer already. The Inquisitor scooted closer to him and recrossed his legs so their knees were touching, and covered Dorian's hands with his own, warm and calloused. "But yes, I would give it all up right now, all my power and influence for a fireplace and a scalding hot bath and the feeling to come back to my toes..."

"Mmm... Is there room for two in that bath?" Dorian asked, a dark suggestion that rumbled low in his throat.

"Of course, as long as we're dreaming, go big or go home," Maxwell chuckled, looking a bit shy and Dorian wondered if he'd made the other man blush. He couldn't tell in the dim light but heat was beginning to build between them, as Max languidly ran his thumb over one of Dorian's knuckles.

"And going home is unfortunately not an option," Dorian mumbled behind a smile, and gently pulled one hand away to take another quick sip of brandy.

"You know it's so cold..." Max said, and then shivered, impatiently grasping to have Dorian's hands back between his own. "That I almost -- _almost_ \-- envy the Commander for that musty old fur thing he wears."

Dorian laughed, and it felt as if he was floating like the wisps above them. The brandy was starting to kick in. "He's got the right idea, hasn't he? It'd look better on you though. You've got the shoulders for it. And the posture."

"I wouldn't mind having one in white," Max said thoughtfully. "To match my hair."

"That _would_ look good," Dorian agreed with a smidgen of hesitance. "Except it would show the blood stains too easily."

Max narrowed his eyes at him, pursing his lips to one side, in that way he did when he wasn't getting his way. "Blast it, you're right," he said after a moment. "Why are the best looking garments always the most difficult to launder?"

"A mystery for the ages," Dorian concurred with a sigh. He took another swig of brandy. When he managed to focus his eyes back on the Inquisitor, the man had the most mischievous look on his face, that somehow managed to make him look younger than he already was. Max pressed his lips together, opened and clicked them shut, trying not to speak.

"What is it?" Dorian snickered at him.

Maxwell's eyes cut off to the side and then dragged back over to Dorian, sheepishly. "If I tell you something," he whispered. "Will you promise not to repeat it?"

Dorian let out an interested hum. "A juicy bit of laundry-related gossip?" he inquired, leaning a little closer.

Tilting his head to the side, Max rubbed at his neck and gave Dorian a shy smile. "Not really... just an observation."

"Well let's hear it then."

Max shook his head and clapped his hand on Dorian's knee. "Do you prromise?" he demanded, slurring a little.

Dorian huffed. "Yes, yes, I promise," he laughed in spite of his frustration. "Out with it!"

Max chewed on his lip before answering, making Dorian conflicted about whether to just kiss him or actually listen to his intriguing secret. "Is it just me," Maxwell said at last. "Or does Cullen walk like he has a huuuge..." He raised one eyebrow in place of saying the word. "You know."

Dorian laughed longer and harder than he should have. "It's not just you, darling," he giggled, a bit dizzy with mirth.

"Yes! I knew it!" Max whisper-shouted, beaming a conspiratorial smile. "Ugh, I've been biting my tongue about it for months!"

Dorian looked the Inquisitor up and down, eyes lingering on a certain area, as he thought about biting Max's tongue for him. "You have bit of a swagger yourself I've noticed," he flirted.

"Well _perhaps,"_ Max conceded with a sharp roll of his eyes, mouth curling upwards in a way that said Dorian was undoubtedly right. "But I don't walk like I have a third _leg_ between my... legs," he pointed out stiltedly.

"Now there's an image," Dorian muttered, taking another sip of brandy just to chase away whatever insecurity this conversation was making him feel.

But Maxwell, damn him, caught onto it immediately. "Sorry, please don't think my eyes are wandering after other men or anything," he pleaded, and Dorian would have chastised him for his calf eyes if his heart hadn't jumped into his throat at the sight. "You're not prone to jealousy are you?" Max asked with a nervous chuckle.

He still wasn't used to this -- this, whatever it was... Not a relationship certainly, Dorian knew better than to hope for that, even if Maxwell had said they should get to know each other better. The word 'us' had been thrown about as if it were an obvious thing, already in existence. And the two of them were nigh inseparable these days. But surely Max didn't feel as if he owed Dorian his unwavering devotion? Surely Dorian should scoff at the idea that he would even want as much. _Say 'Of course not!' Dorian, you've taken too long to answer!_ he scolded himself.

"Maybe a little," he found himself saying instead. "But I think I'll find it in my heart to forgive you, provided you're thinking comparable thoughts about me."

Max snorted at that. "I don't have to think those kinds of thoughts about you, Dorian, your trousers leave very little to the imagination," he teased, the words fracturing into laughter.

"Well neither do yours!" Dorian whined defensively, though of what he wasn't entirely sure. The Inquisitor doubled over, forehead on Dorian's thigh as he continued his drunken snickering. "So are you saying you _don't_ think those kinds of thoughts about me?" Dorian pouted, poking at snow-white hair to get the other man's attention.

"Oh I do," Maxwell insisted, looking up at him, hand on Dorian's shoulder as he attempted to right himself. "I suppose they just... take on a different character. Perhaps because I have the delusion that I'm at least halfway allowed?" he said with a crooked, boyish grin and _Maker,_ Dorian would permit him anything, everything if he insisted on looking at him like that.

"As long as you plan on sharing," he answered in a low voice.

Max grabbed the bottle from him, knocking back a fair bit of the brandy before once again meeting Dorian's eyes. "I reckon there's a reason why you're always so... so perfectly put together," he began.

"Really now?"

That was answered with a waggle of eyebrows. "I say this as the person fortunate enough to see what you look like in the morning, in all your bed-headed, bleary-eyed glory," Maxwell gloated.

Dorian blinked at him begrudgingly. "Much to my chagrin," he interjected.

"It makes me wonder what you would look like, if someone were to completely... dishevel you," Max said suggestively. "If you were to be properly... ehm," here the usually eloquent Inquisitor stopped short, gaze dragging along the cold dirt beneath them for a few long moments.

 _"Properly...?"_ Dorian prompted, and Max gave him a look, grabbed the bottle of brandy and upended it, guzzling the remaining contents in one go. His head tremored as he fought to swallow the last of it, then he gave Dorian another look.

"Properly _fucked..."_ he said with quiet determination, making Dorian's eyes go wide with amusement and maybe a little shock. "I imagine if you went outside in such a state, the whole world would end for how gorgeous you were."

Certainly it felt as if Dorian's world had just ended. Speechless, he could only stare as Maxwell continued to stumble through the most bewildering compliment Dorian had ever received. "Anyone who laid eyes on you... their hearts would just... stop in their chests. And we already have one apocalypse on our hands, so you're probably just doing us all a favor," Max shrugged.

"That..." It took him a moment to remember how words worked. "I don't think I can top that," Dorian half-whispered, a breath caught in his chest, under the imagined weight of countless and nameless fragments of emotion.

"You don't strike me as a top anyhow," Maxwell quipped, and Dorian scoffed with pretend-wounded pride.

"I am _proficient_ at _both,_ thank you," he retorted with a haughty tilt of his head.

Max leaned in impossibly closer, eyes landing on Dorian's lips. "You show off your arse too much for it to be a fifty-fifty split."

His brows shot up at that, surprised by the Inquisitor's boldness. "And _you_ seem to have thought about this an awful lot--"

"And you haven't?"

Dorian gave him his best unimpressed, _oh please_ look. He had probably thought of doing things to the Herald of Andraste that Maxwell couldn't even name. Still, the other man seemed curious. "I suppose it's my turn, then? Honestly, the thing I think about the most..." he started, before his brain and his sense of self-preservation caught up with his mouth.

Maxwell's smile grew brighter. "Yeees?"

"Well you've drunk all the brandy, what am I to do for courage?" Dorian snapped at him without malice.

A dark chuckle came from the Inquisitor's throat, and then he was leaning in and grabbing Dorian by the base of his skull. "Here..." he murmured, and claimed Dorian's mouth with a hungry kiss, sharing the last drops of the brandy that remained on his tongue, tasting of searing flame and succulent fruit. Dorian took it all in with a low growl, sucking Max's bottom lip into his mouth and nibbling on it before swiping his own tongue into Max's mouth.

Maxwell broke away, slowly dragging his lips along Dorian's cheek... studying, like a predator circling its prey. Like an inquisitor about to question a prisoner of war.  "What is it you think of most?" he breathed, a demand quietly burned into Dorian's over-warm skin.

"Your voice..." Dorian answered with all the earnestness of a man about to die. _"Maker,_ your voice."

Max smiled against his cheek, squeezing almost possessively at Dorian's hip. "...You mean this one?" he asked huskily.

Dorian nodded, shivering and not from the cold. "I imagine you're very vocal in bed," he offered. "I bet you like to talk dirty..."

Maxwell pulled back, giving him a challenge-accepting glare as he ran his tongue along his teeth. The sight went straight to Dorian's  cock, even if he wasn't sure what he'd awoken in the other man. "Am I right?" Dorian inquired, trying not to let his voice waver, heart fluttering in his chest.

Corners of his mouth pulled down slightly, Maxwell shrugged, back to his usual adorable self as if freed from a spell. "I do like to talk, I'll give you that," he admitted. "I try not to be _too_ vulgar though."

"You wouldn't have to be," Dorian argued, shaking his head. "You could recite the Chant and sound just as wicked."

With an amused hum, Max leaned forward again, until parted lips were brushing against the ridge of Dorian's ear. "With passion'd breath does the darkness creep," he murmured dramatically, and punctuated it with a sloppy kiss. "It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep."

Dorian was in his lap in the next instant, legs wrapped around the warrior's waist as he pressed his aching erection against Max's stomach and buried his face in his neck, breathing in the scent of lyrium and brandy and leather and blood. "Oh, would that -- we were not --" he said between kisses on Max's jaw. "In a tent -- surrounded by soldiers -- in the middle of -- the _Maker-forsaken--"_

 _"I want you so bad right now,"_ Maxwell rasped, clawing at the back of Dorian's long underwear until they both toppled over onto his bedroll. Dorian shot a hand up in the air, dismissing the wisps and plunging the two of them into darkness, a purely physical world where nothing existed but warm lips and wandering hands.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> I am becausenobreeches on tumblr if you'd like to flail at me about things.


End file.
